I've never bought the course (this IS ERE after all ), but I tried Wim Hof tutorials from youtube to keep warm. (I challenged myself to keep my house between 45-50 deg F this winter, and I live in a drafty house in the northern Midwest.) The breathing technique is the most important part, I think, and it's fairly simple and explained in most youtube tutorials. The most effective method I found (for warmth) was to use the breathing technique in conjunction with pushups, i.e. 1 min of breathing, 1 min of pushups (or plank.)

I haven't been active on here for a while, but I'll probably post an update in my journal next week with a writeup of what worked for me.

I did most of the course. Stopped when it became necessary to submerge myself in cold water as a step up from showers, as that was impractical on a daily basis, but at that point, I had the gist of it. And in ERE fashion, I convinced my work to reimburse me for it!

I have some very long-winded thoughts on what is actually going on in the training, but I can assure you that it does exactly what it claims to do. I think the breathing exercises are very helpful in facilitating the training, and they can be pieced together from youtube tutorials.

Here you go: sit comfortably. Breathe fully in (relaxed and easy), then let it go (relaxed an easy, don't force it). You don't need to do it fast and hyperventilate like some of the youtube vids. That is not how he teaches it. Perform 30-45 breaths. On the last one, hold your breath AFTER the exhale for as long as you can. Don't go crazy and force it. Time doesn't really matter, just push a little into discomfort. Then take a big breath in, hold 10-15 seconds, and immediately repeat process for total of 3-5 sets (or longer!).

You do NOT hold your breath in the shower until the later weeks. Start with 30 seconds cold, then warm for however long you like, then end with 30 seconds cold. Ramp up to a single 10 min cold shower. Then you can start holding your breath for 30 seconds cold, up to a minute. Then you can try it in a tub or body of water, but do not hold your breath very long. You can drown. It is not a breath holding challenge. Thirty seconds, max.

If you can get the course he scales it well and explains it much better, and I believe in supporting people for useful publications with money.

Once you get the hang of it, you can easily warm yourself when cold, based on your ability level, which goes up the longer you train. You can also try this technique when stretching, to relieve a cold or headache, or to facilitate circulation and healing of injuries. I know that sounds ludicrous, but I encourage you to try it once you get the technique, because it's free to try, takes little time, and if it doesn't help, you've lost nothing and can simply quit.

What I think he is actually doing is reviving--in a very specific way--some of the popular old manuals on training the will. I doubt he has read them, but it's essentially the same thing, although his approach involves breath holding and cold water, while there are many other approaches that aim for the same result. If you think of it as simply learning to consciously direct otherwise unconscious functions, you can soon imagine other uses worth trying.

If it's super interesting to you, and you don't mind wading through some turn-of-the-century prose and ideas (some of which you'll find very outdated), you can consult manuals like Leland's Mystic Will, and Atkinson's Mind Power, both of which are free to download from archive.org. You'll notice they take wildly different approaches to essentially do the same thing: train the will (whatever that is) to do whatever you want it to within the laws of nature. Warm up, heal from a cold, have more energy, suck it up, etc etc.

Leland's is way shorter and easier and less-offensive to the intelligent skeptic.

I forgot to mention that after the last set of breathing, instead of a simple hold, you can hold your breath either lungs full or lungs empty (he does both), and perform pushups (or bodyweight squats if pushups are hard for you to do in high numbers). Try not to pass out. The only time I ever got lightheaded was trying to quickly jump up from sitting to start squatting. If you choose to squat, stand up slowly. The pushups won't cause an issue, because it's the standing that causes dizziness, and you can stay near the ground.

Thanks for the details DSKla.
If you don't mind explaining a little further, how do you connect the technique to specific outcomes?
Like what would change if I'm trying to fight a cold vs trying to stay warm?

That's a very good question that I could answer easily or in a novella, and neither would be as good as experimenting with it yourself, but here goes. The short answer for me is "nothing." Or at least I think the same process is at work in both. What exactly you do to help you kick it into gear is where the subtlety comes in.

Hof doesn't give you much instruction on how to warm yourself other than just using the breath. I think sometimes he is brilliantly concise. It seems he does a poor job of explaining, but if you get into it, he gives you exactly what you need without overcomplicating it. I'm going to overcomplicate it.

I find that imagination helps me direct what I'm doing. Mostly visualization, but you may respond differently. If we call it the will, to use Schopenhauer's term, let's say there is a preconscious will, then a conscious intent, then a definite plan/command, then a physical action, in order for the chain to be connected. This is what I do to warm (your method may vary). I formulate an intent to warm myself, then I give a silent command, "warm," which I time to coincide with the exhalation (action). This alone can work, but I like to imagine a pilot flame kicking on inside my chest, then with each breath, the flame warming my blood and pumping it outward, and chilly blood returning to be warmed. Repeat the intent and command with each breath as long as desired.

I have stood outside with blue/purple fingers and done this for about five minutes, and watched the, turn red and warm without any movement or change in external temperature. The more you can create helpful visuals to direct whatever you are trying to do, the better it works, I find. That said, putting my hands in my pockets (an even stronger action) would help. I just wanted to try it without that.

So if I have the first sign of a cold, I might change my word to "heal." I like to keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler. Again, any visualization can work, but just visualizing circulation to the affected area is nice. In this case, as with most situations, connecting the chain down to actions help. It's silly to just try to think everythink away when you can aid yourself by drinking water, resting, eating well, etc. But the first action you always need to do is the breath.

For injuries or for warmth I find imagining the bloodflow going to the area, and timing things to your exhalation to be very useful.

What I'm glossing over is the state you have to be in before you can even bother forming intentions, giving commands, and acting. The best-documented thing I've found is what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi wrote about as "flow." As soon as you read a brief description of flow, you'll recognize many times in your life when you felt it. For me, this method was helpful in 1) recognizing it when I'm in it, 2) learning to enter it voluntarily instead of by luck, and 3) using it purposefully.

For example, Mihaly C. wrote a book on flow as used creatively in arts and sciences (called Creativity), so I tried using this method to facilitate my writing. I've not only been working faster and easier, but with better first draft material as well. Which is why I recommended that people not limit themselves to cold and illness. I really do think getting into that state allows you to do things better--plain and simple.

Another important note: if you're deciding on a word or phrase to tell yourself, I find it best to make it goal-oriented rather than process-oriented, then follow up with process-oriented action. Heal is a goal, you wouldn't list things one might do to heal, or biological processes that perform the healing. But you would then drink water, rest, eat chicken soup, etc. to help yourself out.

Almost forgot: if you're doing it tog et over a cold, sprained ankle, or whatnot, do it often throughout the day, but the most important time is at night, as you lie in bed before going to sleep. Trust me on that one.

Like a muscle that gets stronger slowly over time if it's stressed correctly, this is a skill that grows bit by bit. And fades if it isn't practiced. Hope that wasn't too abstract or bizarre.

His name is Wim. He is Dutch and a charlatan. My sister tried his method and stopped her medication and had a flare up of her ulcerative colitis. She's back on her meds now, and doing better. But still following the method. I'm not sure why.

Don't do this for your health.

At most, do it as a challenge of what abuse your body can handle.

A Dutch university studied his method and said that the breathing method makes you slightly high, so that the signals of "Yo, I'm cold!" don't reach your brain anymore. That can be dangerous if you really are freezing your toes off. And some people have fainted - of course that can also be dangerous, depending on where you are when you faint and what you hit on your way to the ground.